BLACK AND WHITE vs BLACK OR WHITE: Bioethics and Mixed Race Families

Posted in Articles, Book/Video Reviews, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, My Articles/Point of View/Activities on 2015-03-03 18:54Z by Steven

BLACK AND WHITE vs BLACK OR WHITE: Bioethics and Mixed Race Families

September Williams’ Bioethics Screen Reflections: Film, Television, and Media Critiques Relevant to Bioethics
2015-03-01

September Williams, MD

Black and White, screened at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival and later at the Mill Valley Film Festival, in October 2014. The same title was also used to discuss the film in various film trade publications. However, the film’s title changed by the time of its USA distribution date, January 30, 2015. The word ‘and’ was replaced with the word ‘or’. That is, the film title became Black or White. Use of the word ‘and’ better reflects the courage of writer-director Mike Bender [Binder] in broaching contemporary issues around race and class. The film only superficially reflects two entities fighting one another. Much more prominent in the story is a struggle for Black and White to save each other. Bender [Binder] dares to suggest, we might all be in this mess together, sinking or swimming. Ignoring antebellum period themes, it’s a new take…

…Obvious bioethical concerns in Black and White include concerns for the best surrogate for a child whose parents are no longer able to parent; the age of autonomous decision making for children and historical injustices inherent in racism and classicism. The role of grief, acute and prolonged, in the context of substance abuse stands out. In the end it is the lagging of social construction, far behind the science of the human genome, that keeps viewers watching.

Stephen [Steven] Riley wrote an analysis of stresses, those identifying as Mixed Race, felt in filling out Box 9 on the 2010 United States census. He describes people agonizing about accurately portraying their racial identity. Riley states “For those who desire to portray their ‘accurate racial’ identity, I have news for you — ‘racial accuracy’ is an oxymoron. ‘Race’ as a biological, or anthropological construct is an utter fallacy”…

Read the entire article here.

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Review: Nuance-Deprived “Race” Movie ‘Black or White’ is Actually About White Frustration (Opens Friday)

Posted in Articles, Book/Video Reviews, Media Archive, United States on 2015-01-28 20:59Z by Steven

Review: Nuance-Deprived “Race” Movie ‘Black or White’ is Actually About White Frustration (Opens Friday)

Shadow and Act: On Cinema Of The African Diaspora
2015-01-27

Zeba Blay

“Black or White” opens nationwide this Friday, January 30, via Relativity…

Is it any wonder that a movie as lazily titled as “Black or White” fails to actually tackle issues of race and class in any meaningful way? Is it any wonder, when its writer and director is Mike Binder, a (white) filmmaker whose approach to storytelling has often lacked any semblance of nuance and subtlety? The movie, apparently “based on true events,” is about a custody battle over a 7-year-old biracial Eloise (charming child actress Jillian Estell), between her wealthy and recently widowed white grandfather Elliot (Kevin Costner), and black grandmother Rowena (Octavia Spencer).

When the movie begins, the little girl has been living with her white grandparents since the death of her teen mother at birth. However, after Elliott’s wife dies in a freak car accident, Rowena, a self-made woman who lives in Compton with a tight knit and sprawling extended family, thinks it’s time that Eloise grows up around other black people, fearing that she may lose a sense of her identity.

It’s a fairly intriguing premise, but one that must be handled delicately in order to work. Here, it doesn’t. Very much in the style of past Costner-collaboration, “The Upside of Anger,” Binder’s brand of comedy drama is far too broad. While Costner, whose swaggering charisma has always been his saving grace, turns in a decent performance, hinging on great chemistry with his child co-star, all the swagger in the world couldn’t save this film.

It’s a movie about race that doesn’t actually want to talk about race. Here, the focal point is the wealthy white man who we’re encouraged to root for, from the very beginning, simply by virtue of the fact that he’s in 90% of every scene. Octavia Spencer, once again, is called on to play a variation of the sassy black woman – her acting, as usual, is great, but she’s given little else to do than suck her teeth and roll her eyes, and provide both comic relief and obstacle for Elliot to overcome…

Read the entire review here.

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